Since the dawn of colonization, Brazil has built its society on the devastation of the lives of black and indigenous women, subjected to rape and oppression as a tool of domination. This violent legacy has not been abolished; on the contrary, it has become naturalized and crosses generations and shapes inequalities which today mark gender-based violence with a strong racial bias. When we examine recent data, we realize that this colonial legacy remains alive and mortal.
The most recent DataSenado, in partnership with the Observatory of Women against Violence, interviewed, between August and September 2023, 13,977 self-proclaimed black or brown women, aged 16 or over, in all units of the federation. In 2022, of more than 202,000 cases of violence treated by the health system, 55% were black women. Of the female homicides for which racial information was recorded, 67% were black women.
In the domestic dimension, the cycle of vulnerability and violence is evident. Among Black women who reported domestic violence, 66% reported having no or insufficient personal income. Of these, 85% live with the attacker, a situation which worsens when there are minor children: 80% of these mothers continue to live with the person who attacks them. The impact of economic dependence is reflected in the abandonment of the search for protection: only 30% sought health care after serious episodes of violence.
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These figures cannot be treated as isolated statistics. They denounce a culture rooted in colonial Brazil: the rape of black and indigenous women was not an isolated act, but a founding instrument of colonial and patriarchal oppression. This institutionalized violence constructed and naturalized a racist and misogynistic view of these women, one that we continue to reproduce today, as we allow domestic violence and femicide to be almost invisible to much of society.
What this data requires is not temporary turmoil, but political repositioning. Violence against black women persists not because of an isolated moral failure, but because of repeated decisions to give up. This persists because there is a lack of coherent policies, a continuous budget, effective protection, real control and economic autonomy for those who live at the base of the social pyramid. When the state fails, violence becomes predictable. And when violence becomes predictable, it becomes tolerated.
The imposed pact is neither symbolic nor rhetorical. It’s material. Protection is needed to function before aggression becomes a statistic. This requires income, access to health care, decent housing and ongoing legal and psychological support. It demands that the lives of these women stop being treated as collateral damage of inequality. As long as public authorities only act in reaction and not in prevention, they will continue to manage deaths instead of protecting lives.
If this legacy is not interrupted objectively, with public policies and real commitment, we will continue to reproduce the logic that authorizes violence from the Colony. Breaking this cycle is not a gesture of goodwill. It is an institutional obligation, it is a historical responsibility, it is a civilizing duty.
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